Art Gensler founded the world's largest architecture firm in S.F. It designed the newly opened Terminal 3 at San Francisco International Airport.

Photo: Michael Short, The Chronicle

Art Gensler founded the world's largest architecture firm in S.F....

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Art Gensler, head of the Gensler Arcitects, poses for a portrait in the newly opened United T3 terminal, which his company designed, at San Francisco International Airport in Millbrae, CA Wednesday, March 5, 2014.

Photo: Michael Short, The Chronicle

Art Gensler, head of the Gensler Arcitects, poses for a portrait in...

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Art Gensler (left) talks with architect David Meckel at the social gathering Wednesday February 26, 2014 in San Francisco, Calif. Arthur Gensler, who runs the worlds largest architectural firm based in San Francisco, recently attended an event for the California College of the Arts where he was the guest of honor.

The lanky 78-year-old perked up even more at the sight of John Martin, SFO's director and for nearly 20 years a client of the architecture firm that Gensler founded in 1965.

"All these people sure look happy," Gensler beamed as airline passengers ambled by, many pausing at the sleek restaurants and shops along the way.

"They're spending a lot of money, too," Martin emphasized.

"That's what we want," Gensler laughed.

The designer of the boarding area is Gensler the firm, not Gensler the man. But in some ways the two remain inseparable, even though he stepped down as chairman in 2010.

The pride he takes in his creation is palpable, and no wonder. The firm he started with four drafting tables in sublet space near San Francisco's Jackson Square today is the world's largest architectural practice - a privately held company with 46 offices in 14 countries. More than 4,000 employees work in 27 practice areas ranging from tall buildings to product design.

Opportunities seized

All this occurred without mergers or acquisitions, Gensler instead sensing and seizing opportunity. It's a trait he perhaps inherited from his father, a ceiling tile salesman in New York.

The firm that turned office interiors into a key segment of the design industry is equally known now for retail spaces, including the first 100 Apple Stores, and major structures. The west wing of Moscone Center is a Gensler design. So is the newest terminal at Mineta San Jose International Airport. And 1111 Broadway built in 1990, a 24-story high-rise in Oakland's City Center complex.

The common thread among the projects is a man who projects a Midwestern air despite Brooklyn roots, a vocal proponent of the belief - rare among big names in his field - that design is an ensemble effort.

"I'm not the guy perfecting the detail on the curtain wall. We've got good people for that," Gensler said this month. "I'm good at understanding what clients want. That's the fun of it for me."

He couldn't have known this as a child growing up in Connecticut after his family moved to the suburbs from Brooklyn, cutting articles on architectural topics from magazines like Time and Life. He attended Cornell and graduated with an architecture degree in 1958, the year after marrying Drue Cortell, whom he dated through college.

The couple moved to the Bay Area four years later, and Gensler settled into the office of Wurster Bernardi & Emmons. But in 1965, he had a chance to strike out on his own. The boss gave his blessing: William "Wurster told me every architect should have his own business, so I should work in the morning for him and go to my office in the afternoon."

'Quick learner'

Where Wurster was known for single-family homes and his tenure as dean of what now is UC Berkeley's College of Environmental Design, Gensler found clients by crafting office layouts for downtown towers, finishes included: "I didn't know anything about carpets or curtains, but I'm a quick learner." Drue Gensler handled the books and office duties even as she raised the couple's four sons.

The turning point came a few years later, when Gensler was hired to arrange the interiors of Bank of America's headquarters at 555 California St., a 52-story shaft of dark granite that Gensler still views as "one of the solidest, most amazing buildings in the world." He hit on a scheme with private window offices of alternating size, a deft pattern that would line up within the jagged bays, floor after floor after floor.

"That was my job, to find a design that would attract law firms" to lease space not needed by the bank, Gensler said. "I was just trying to get my feet wet, and we're designing space in the biggest building around."

With his work on interiors - until then an afterthought in the trade - Gensler had found the key to all that followed: devise an efficient solution and do it in such a way that the client loves the result.

Designed Apple Stores

That list of clients included Steve Jobs, who met Gensler at a Monterey Design Conference - "I went to him after he spoke and said, 'You're the first person I've ever heard who can explain how a computer works' " -and in 2000 hired the firm to design a prototype for the initial wave of Apple Stores.

Gensler's designers went to work on full-scale models inside a warehouse near Apple's Cupertino headquarters. Every Thursday afternoon, Jobs would stop by to survey progress.

"It was just him and me, every week for five months. We'd build a store, and he'd shred it, tear it apart," Gensler recalled fondly this month. Other firms were working on prototypes as well, but "everyone got fired except us."

There's little obvious resemblance between the legendary Apple co-founder and Gensler, whose default mode is a gregarious amiability. What the two shared instead was an attention to detail that would help them outflank rivals.

In Gensler's case, he made it a point almost from the beginning to learn about running a business, the nuts and bolts that many architects dismiss with a shrug.

Passionate, driven

"When we met I was primarily interested in design. Art was primarily interested in organization, extremely intelligent and with a great passion," recalled Cesar Pelli, whose firm, Pelli Clarke Pelli, is architect of San Francisco's new Transbay Transit Center.

It was the early 1970s. Pelli, who went on to become one of the world's leading high-rise architects, was designing the first tower at Oakland City Center. Gensler was working on two smaller buildings. "He had a tiny office at the time, but he was incredibly driven from the moment I met him," Pelli said.

As national developers and international markets flourished during the 1970s, Gensler opened offices wherever his clients touched down, boomtowns like Denver or Houston. The first global office was London, in 1988: "Early on I made a commitment to my clients - if you need me, I'll be there."

He also made commitments to his family. The home office remained in San Francisco, and Gensler would catch the 5:30 ferry back home to Tiburon, where he and Drue settled in 1963 and where they still live. He'd eat dinner and relax until his four sons were immersed in schoolwork or tucked in bed, then drive back to the city and work some more.

"He traveled an extreme amount , but when he was at home, he'd be sitting in the living room in his Eames chair," recalled Douglas Gensler, Art's youngest son and an architect who manages the firm's Boston office. Another son, David, is one of the firm's three executive directors. "I've never known someone able to watch TV, read articles and get something out of each at the same time."

Work with SFO

The relationship with SFO began in 1974, when a consultant put Gensler on the list of architects who would be allowed to make a pitch for projects at the ever-expanding airport. The firm had exactly zero experience in such work. Gensler got the job.

"I figured 'if I know anything, I know airports' - at the time I had been through 123 of them," Gensler explained this month. "I told them at the interview 'I understand the passenger experience and what we can do to make something that appeals to people.' "

This led to the conversion of an aged terminal into SFO's first international terminal. The upgrade was a hit that Gensler describes with pride to this day. But he can't show it off: The structure was gutted to make way for the 2011 debut of what's called T2, home to Virgin Airlines and American Airlines, designed by the firm as well.

Any regrets at the loss of the first in what has been an award-winning niche for the firm? Not at all.

Build, then replace it

"I've never looked at anything we did as so precious that it's irreplaceable," Gensler said before the tour of the United boarding area. "My ideal building would be one where after 30 years, poof, it disappears and we can start all over again."

That pragmatism is no surprise to Melissa Mizell, a senior associate at the firm who directed the design of the interiors at both T2 and United's redone boarding area.

"He doesn't let sentiment get in the way of buildings that no longer serve their purpose," Mizell said. "And when he weighs in, it's not about aesthetics. He trusts people."

50 chairs to pick from

One of Mizell's first projects at the firm involved a college student union. Gensler "had me call suppliers to pull every single chair known to man, so the client could try them out," she recalled, laughing. "We had at least 50 here in the office. Art cared about the chair."

These days, Gensler isn't nearly so hands-on. Nor is he involved in managing his creation ("I don't actually do anything anymore except come in the morning," he joked at SFO). But he still takes part in the Monday conference calls that include progress reports from every far-flung office. He's still the point of contact for major clients who for decades have gone straight to the man at the top.

"His presence is the same as ever when he's in the office, and he's there pretty much every day" said Steve Weindel, a principal who was the lead architect for the San Jose terminal. "He walks around and talks to everyone, sits down on your desk, asks what you're working on."

Museum competition

He's also still intensely competitive, a trait that surfaces when he discusses the firm's failure to be selected to design the new wing of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

Gensler the man had been on SFMOMA's board, helping convince longtime friend Donald Fisher that the institution was a worthy home for the paintings and sculptures the Gap founder and his wife, Doris, had collected over the decades. Gensler the firm was one of eight invited in 2010 to take part in a competition to expand the existing museum.

Instead, SFMOMA selected the Norwegian firm Snøhetta. Construction began last year, and the museum, doubled in size, should open in 2016.

Observers handicapped Gensler as a long shot from the start, speculating that the firm was only included as a sop to an active board member. But for Gensler, the loss still stings.

"It hurt emotionally - we had invested a lot of time and effort and money. But they wanted a new name," suggested Gensler. "Travel 30 miles with a briefcase, and people look at you as a bigger star than they do back home. I've taken advantage of that reality myself, so I can't bitch about it."

While Gensler remains on SFMOMA's board of trustees, his philanthropy is focused on other institutions. One is Novato's Buck Institute for Research on Aging, recipient of a $5 million gift in 2012 from Art and Drue. Another is California College of the Arts; Gensler is a trustee and on March 26 will be honored at a gala where tickets start at $750, the proceeds going to scholarships.

Napkin sketches

After showing off the United boarding area with Mizell, Gensler mentioned with dismay what happened a day earlier. Planners of the college event visited him at the Gensler headquarters at Hills Plaza on the Embarcadero, where his corner office faces the city rather than the bay.

The guests caught sight of scribbled-upon napkins adorning one wall they passed, and thought it would be a great idea for Gensler to sketch a building on a napkin that they could use as a theme for decorations.

Mizell explained to her former boss that these days, some Gensler architects in brainstorming sessions use napkins on which all involved can sketch their ideas.

"I'll come up with something," Gensler said, sheepish and enthusiastic at once. "I do do sketches - but mine are really awful."